Barry Eisler - Hard Rain

“Remember the last time I saw you?” she asked.

It had been here, at the Imperial Hotel. We’d spent the night together. The next morning I had left to intercept Holtzer’s limousine. I had spent a few days in police custody after that. Meanwhile, Tatsu had told Midori I was dead and had deep-sixed the disk. Game over.

“I remember,” I said.

“You said, ‘I’ll be back sometime in the evening. Will you wait for me?’ Well, I waited for two days before I heard from your friend Ishikura-san. I had no one to contact, no way to know.”

I saw her eyes move to the ceiling for a moment, maybe looking away from memories she didn’t want to see. Maybe willing back tears.

“I couldn’t believe you were gone,” she went on. “Then I started to wonder if you really were gone. And if you weren’t gone, what would that mean? And then I doubted myself. I doubted myself. I thought, ‘He can’t still be alive, he wouldn’t have done this to you.’ But I couldn’t get rid of the suspicions. I didn’t know whether to grieve for you, or to want to kill you.”

She turned and looked at me. “Do you understand what you put me through?” she asked, her voice dropping into a whisper. “You… you fucking tortured me!”

In my peripheral vision I saw her quickly flick her thumb across one cheek, then the other. I looked down into my glass. The last thing she would want would be for me to witness her tears.

After a moment I turned to her. “Midori,” I said. My voice was low and sounded strange to me. “I’m sorrier for all this than I can say. If I could change any of it, I would.”

We were silent for a moment. I thought of Rio and said, “For what it’s worth, I’ve been trying to get out.”

She looked at me. “How hard are you trying? Most people get along pretty well without killing someone. They don’t have to go out of their way to avoid it.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that with me.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “Right now the people who know me seem to be equally divided between wanting to kill me and wanting me to kill.”

“Ishikura-san?”

I nodded. “Tatsu has devoted his life to fighting corruption in Japan. He’s got assets, but the forces he’s up against are stronger than he is. He’s trying to even the odds.”

“It’s hard for me to picture him as one of the good guys.”

“I’m sure it is. But the world he inhabits isn’t as black and white as the one you do. Believe it or not, he was trying to help your father.”

And suddenly I understood why he had sent her here. Not because he hoped that I would assist him as a quid pro quo for a few exculpatory comments he’d made to Midori. Or at least not entirely that. No, his real hope was that, if Midori came to view Tatsu as in some way trying to continue the fight her father had begun, she might want me to help him. He hoped that my seeing her would tap into my regrets about her father, make me malleable to a request that I do what he wanted.

“So now you’re ‘trying to get out,” ’ she said.

I nodded, thinking this would be what she wanted to hear.

But she laughed. “Is that your atonement after all you’ve done? I didn’t know it was that easy to get into heaven.”

Maybe I didn’t have a right, but I was starting to get irritated. “Look, I made a mistake with your father. I told you I’m sorry for it, I told you I would change it if I could. What else can I do? You want me to pour gasoline on myself and light a match? Feed the hungry? What?”

She dropped her eyes. “I don’t know.”

“Well, I don’t know, either. But I’m trying.”

That fucking Tatsu , I thought. He’d seen all of this. He knew she would rattle me.

I finished my Bunnahabhain. I set the empty glass down on the table and looked at it.

“I want something from you,” I heard her say after a moment.

“I know,” I answered, not looking at her.

“I don’t know what it is.”

I closed my eyes. “I know you don’t.”

“I can’t believe I’m even sitting here talking to you.”

To that I only nodded.

There was another long silence while I ran through my mind all the things I wished I could say to her, things I wished could make a difference.

“We’re not through,” I heard her say.

I looked at her, not knowing what she meant, and she went on.

“When I know what I want from you, I’m going to tell you.”

“I appreciate it,” I said dryly. “That way I’ll at least see it coming.”

She didn’t laugh. “You’re the killer, not me.”

“Right.”

She looked at me for a moment longer, then said, “I can find you here?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Where, then?”

“It’s better if I find you.”

“No!” she said with a sudden vehemence that surprised me. “No more of that bullshit. If you want to see me again, tell me where you’ll be.”

I picked up my empty glass and gripped it tightly.

Walk away , I told myself. You don’t even need to say anything. Just put a few bills on the table and go. You’ll never see her again .

Except I’d always be seeing her. I couldn’t get away from it.

I’ve gotten used to hoping for so little that I seem to have lost any natural immunity to the emotion’s infection. My hopes for Midori had gotten a foothold, and as ridiculous as they’d become, I couldn’t seem to beat them back.

“Look,” I said, already knowing it was futile. “I’ve lived this way for a long time. This is the reason I’ve lived for a long time.”

“Forget it, then,” she said. She stood up.

“All right,” I said. “You can find me here.”

She looked at me and nodded. “Okay.”

I paused. “Am I going to hear from you?” I asked.

“Do you care?”

“I’m afraid I do.”

“Good,” she said, nodding. “Let’s see how you like the uncertainty.”

She turned and walked away.

I paid the bill and waited for a minute, then left, using one of the basement exits.

I couldn’t stay there any longer. I might be able to live with Midori herself knowing my whereabouts, but she had no security consciousness and I couldn’t live with the possibility that she might inadvertently lead someone to me. I wanted to make things harder for Tatsu, too. It might not have mattered all that much at this point if he had a way to find me, but I didn’t like the notion.

I would stay at the most anonymous business hotels, a different one every night. Doing so would protect me from anyone who might be following Midori and would keep Tatsu scrambling to try to keep up.

I’d keep the room at the Imperial, of course. That might help throw Tatsu off. Also, I’d be able to check the room voice mail remotely, in case Midori tried to reach me there. I could stop in from time to time, using extra care, just to maintain appearances.

I kept my head low and did everything I could to try to avoid presenting a pretty picture for the cameras, but there was no way to be sure. I felt boxed in, claustrophobic.

Maybe I would just bolt. First thing in the morning, Osaka, Rio, finito .

But I hated the thought that Midori might try to contact me again, only to find, again, that I was gone.

You’re already lying to her , I thought. Took you all of a half-hour .

Then maybe I would stay for another day, two at the most. Yeah, maybe. And after that, the next time Midori or Tatsu or anyone else heard from me it would be via postcard, par avion .

I made some aggressive moves to ensure that I wasn’t being followed. Then I slowed down and drifted through night Tokyo, not knowing where I was going, not caring.